The Last ONE Standing

Out of the number one seeds from each region 86% of the brackets picked Kansas, 65% picked Syracuse, 67.1% picked Kentucky and 56.1 % of the 5.4 million brackets completed on ESPN.com picked Duke to reach the final four.

The Blue Devils are the last one standing.

Baylor’s size worried Duke Fans. Baylor’s average size outranked Duke by five inches. That’s a huge size difference and an advantage in college basketball. If this was baseball, Baylor would have been mentioned in the Mitchell Report.

The Bear’s held junior Kyle Singler to just five points the whole game. The close game back and forth had Duke fans praying to Christian Laettner Gods. No coincidence that it was the 18th anniversary of his game-winner that beat Kentucky in 1992. But the Laettner Gods didn’t send a miracle, instead they sent an untouchable Nolan Smith who scored 29 points- a career high.

It came down to last three minutes of the game and Baylor’s size didn’t matter as Nolan Smith hit a 3-pointer and John Scheyer followed putting Duke on top 67-61.

Duke won 78-71 and will return to the final four for the first time since 2004.